Trembling Rose
by stoner-blake
Summary: It's evening, the weather is awful, and both teams RWBY and JNPR have nothing better do than to gather and tell spooky stories to each other.


"...And then, they heard a hissing along the side of the car."

"A scraping sound, Nora."

Both teams, RWBY and JNPR, were sitting in a circle on the floor of the latter's dorm room, trying to focus on Nora as she attempted a retelling of a horror story, Ren correcting her in a monotone voice after nearly every line. Sure, the valkyrie was able to get the suspenseful voice down, but the fact that she kept getting most of it wrong was enough to take away any chance of the story being scary.

"Getting scared, they locked the doors and drove off to church."

"Home, not a church."

The current scene had been the result of a particularly dismal day, a thunderstorm having broken out over the entirety of Vale sometime around mid-morning. Even now, there was heavy rain pelting the window to the room, and wind howling outside. A bright flash lit up the dim room far brighter than the one candle in the middle of the room was doing, as a lightning bolt stretched out jaggedly from the dark clouds to the earth on the horizon, a low rumbling following a handful of seconds later.

All in all, the perfect kind of atmosphere for telling spooky stories, or so Nora had suggested. And somehow, they had all agreed to do it (except for Weiss, who had other plans for the afternoon), after classes were done for the day. Even if now, with Nora still trying to tell the story with Ren piping in to fix a fact in every pause, none of them would call it scary.

"But then, when they went to check the car afterwards..." Nora paused, drawing up the suspense before she would continue. "There was a Beowulf stuck on the door handle to the driver's side!"

"A hook, Nora, not a Beowulf." Ren calmly amended as he lay on the floor next to her, his tone even as usual.

"What? But a Beowulf would be much scarier!" The redhead argued earnestly.

"Well, for one thing, if it was a Beowulf, it would have torn the whole car apart before they could drive off." He replied.

"Oh." She paused for a moment, thinking over that fact. "Darn, I should have ended it like that!" Stating that, she flopped backwards onto the floor, done with her portion of the story telling. A small smile graced Ren's face for a few seconds, the only sign of his amusement over his partner's antics even if it was barely noticeable.

"Okay, so whose turn does that make it now?" Pyrrha asked, looking around the circle from where she was kneeling, hands on her lap, as Jaune dozed beside her, leaning against a wall with his head tilted back and lightly snoring. She had been the first to try telling a story (a tale of sounds that she had heard echoing round the school late one day when no one else had been around, which had actually turned out to be the swordsman next to her who had had the misfortune to get locked inside a storage room by mistake).

Giving the question a thought, Yang looked over to her younger sister, realising that Ruby hadn't volunteered yet, despite having half the gathering have a go. In fact, the scythe wielder had been abnormally quiet and tense the whole evening. Right now, she even had her cape drawn up around her like a blanket over her pyjamas, a slight touch of white to her knuckles as she gripped the edges.

"Ruby?" That earned a jerk of the head as the younger was startled, before she turned to face the blonde. "Don't you wanna try telling a story?" Yang suggested, giving a gesture of one hand towards the circle.

"No, I'm fine." The elder of the pair frowned slightly at the terse answer, though it had been somewhat expected. Yang did know how Ruby had reacted most of their childhood to any horror tale. Throw her at some monsters, and she wouldn't hesitate to slice them to shreds, but give her a narrative that involved things going bump in the night, and she would be under the covers in a second. She was surprised that Ruby had actually accepted the activity instead of trying to excuse herself from it.

"I'll go, if no one else wants to." Blake's voice piped up, distracting the blonde as she glanced over. Her tone might been easy going, implying that she didn't care either way if someone else wanted to take the turn, but there was also a glint to her golden eyes and a twitch of a smirk to her mouth that spoke otherwise.

"...Once there, the police man told her to go back inside the stall and wait to see if she could hear the voice again. And she did just as she was told."

It should have been no surprise that Blake, the bookworm of the team, would know how to tell a ghost story. Everyone was hooked on the story, (except for Jaune, who was still snoring away in the background of the tale), although Yang couldn't help but be concerned at the way Ruby's knuckles were turning even whiter during the story. She could have sworn that the red cloak had only been drawn up to just below her chin before, not to almost her nose.

"The voice spoke once more." The faunus's hushed voice spoke again, directing her back to the tale. "'Do you want me to cover you with a red coat?' She answered. 'Yes.'" Ruby's hands were starting to shake a little, about to prompt her sister into speaking up again. "And then-"

The gale outside violently slammed the previously closed window open, a gust blowing right in to blow out the candle right before a mighty crack of thunder boomed right on top of them as lightning flashed through the window frame. In the midst of it all, a loud shriek could be heard, followed quickly by something striking the floor with a thump as the flash of light vanished and darkness took over the room.

Pyrrha reacted first, getting up and walking over to where she vaguely remembered the light switch being on the wall. A few moments of groping around looking for it, her hand finally brushed against the switch, the light bulb in the ceiling swiftly lighting up the room.

"Is everyone okay?" She called out as her green eyes scanned the gathering. There was a general chorus of replies affirming everyone was okay, even from Jaune, who had been startled awake by the slam of the window, and was now securing it back into place to stop the rain coming in.

There was a pained groan from Yang, prompting the redhead to flick her gaze over towards her. The tall blonde was rubbing a hand against the back of her head, which had been one part of her to be have wounded up hitting the floor when Ruby had tackled her, her cloak having fluttered off to one side during the lunge she had made. The younger girl was still clinging to her, arms around the elder's neck and her face buried against it as she shivered despite the wind now blocked out.

"Ouch, Ruby, you didn't have to be so rough." The blonde teased lightly as she tried to sit up without dislodging the girl who refused to let go of her. "If you were getting scared, you could have said something, you know?"

"...I th-thought, maybe I was over it now." Came a muffled reply, Ruby turning her face slightly out from Yang's neck to be heard. "I'm not a little kid any more, I sh-shouldn't be afraid of ghosts." Though she was trying to act brave now, the few stutters gave it away how much the sudden interruption by the elements had scared her.

Pausing, lilac eyes regarded the smaller girl as Yang thought for a while. At the end of it, she gave a sigh, swinging one arm to under Ruby's knees, and the other to her back, helping the taller of the pair to hold onto Ruby and hoist her into a more comfortable position as Yang stood up, easily taking the extra weight. There was a small squeak from the younger as she did so, but she ignored it.

"Guess that puts an end to the ghost stories for tonight." Yang said out loud, addressing the others who were watching. "I'd better take Ruby back to our room and get ready for bed." Blake, sensing that it might be best to wait a while instead of joining them as they left, stayed behind to help team JNPR pick up the mess the strong burst of wind had done to the room.

It wasn't exactly an easy feat to manage open and closing doors while carrying someone, and then to climb to the upper bunk that was Ruby's, but somehow Yang managed to do it all. Drawing up the sheets over her baby sister, Yang started to climb back down and go to her own bed, when a small hand grabbed onto one of her forearms.

"Yang?" She glanced back to Ruby, waiting with raised eyebrows for why her name had been called in such a pleading manner. There was a tinge of pink blossoming on the younger sister's face as she tried to talk again. "I'm still scared. Could you...?" She didn't end the question, instead trailing off as she grew too embarrassed to finish it. Catching on, the blonde gave a soft grin.

"Of course!" It took only a matter of seconds for the older sister to climb up into the bunk and slide underneath the sheets as Ruby shifted over to make room. This was something they had done many times as kids, whenever there had been some horror film or otherwise to scare the youngest into having nightmares later. And although they were a few years older than the last time they had done so, there was no awkwardness as Yang wrapped her arms around Ruby's waist, holding her close as she tucked the other's head under her chin. She could practically feel the earlier tension in the dark haired girl slowly fade away as they relaxed in the bed, the sheets draped to just past their stomachs.

"Thank you." Ruby whispered to her older sister, who simply grinned further and waited to hear the other's breathing become slower and more even as she drifted off into sleep. Once she was sure her sister was no longer awake, Yang pressed a soft kiss to her crown, her grip on Ruby tightening a bit more.

"I promised you, didn't I?" She murmured, even though the other could no longer hear her. A memory of when Yang was only six appeared in her mind, losing herself in the nostalgia of it as she also started to drift off to sleep. "I'll always protect you."


End file.
